What is the standard section order for an academic CV?

The standard academic CV order is: contact information, education, research experience, publications (peer-reviewed articles, then reviews/book chapters, then conference papers), grants and fellowships, presentations, teaching experience, mentoring, professional service, and references. Publications almost always come before teaching for research-focused positions. The section order can shift slightly by field — in some social sciences, teaching experience ranks higher. For faculty applications, your publication record is what search committees read first.

How should publications be listed on an academic CV?

List publications in reverse chronological order within each category. Include all authors in the same order as on the paper — do not abbreviate to 'et al.' Underline or bold your name so it's easy to locate in the author list. Include full journal name (not abbreviation), volume, issue, page numbers, and year. Include the DOI as a link when possible. Preprints can be listed separately under 'Preprints' or 'Manuscripts Under Review' — label them clearly. Do not include papers that haven't been submitted. Separate peer-reviewed articles from review articles, book chapters, and other formats.

How long should an academic CV be?

Academic CVs have no length limit — they should be as long as your record warrants. For a PhD student applying to postdoc positions, 2-3 pages is typical. For a postdoc applying for faculty positions, 4-6 pages is common. Senior faculty CVs routinely run 15-30 pages. Unlike a resume, cutting content to meet a page limit is wrong for academic applications — leave everything that's accurate and relevant. What matters is that the document is consistently formatted and easy to scan.

What is the difference between an academic CV and an industry resume?

An academic CV is a complete record of your scholarly output — publications, grants, presentations, teaching, service. It has no length limit and is meant to document your career comprehensively. An industry resume is a 1-2 page targeted document that emphasizes transferable skills and achievements relevant to a specific role. If you're transitioning from academia to industry, don't submit a CV as a resume — the format signals poor fit. Convert your CV into a resume by prioritizing skills and impact over publication lists.

Should I include a research statement with my CV for faculty applications?

For faculty applications, yes — almost all R1 institutions require a research statement (also called a statement of research interests or research plan). The CV is submitted alongside the research statement, teaching statement, and often a diversity statement. The research statement does the explanatory work — what you've done, why it matters, and where it's going. The CV provides the documentary evidence. Most faculty application packages include all four documents submitted together.

Scope: 11 CV sections · 3 career stages · formatting rules·Data: NIH, NSF, and university career office guidelines·Last reviewed: March 2026·Source: Manusights editorial team (researchers with publications in Cell, Nature, Science)·Cite this guide ↓

How to Write a Scientific CV for Academia

An academic CV isn't a resume. It's a complete record of your professional life as a researcher: every publication, every grant, every talk. Where a resume is a curated one-page pitch tailored to a specific job, a CV grows with your career and leaves nothing out. If you're applying for a postdoc, a faculty position, or a grant, you need one.

This guide covers the standard section order for biomedical and life science researchers, how to format your publications correctly, what changes at each career stage, and the mistakes that make hiring committees wince. It's written for people in PhD programs, postdoc positions, and early faculty roles, but the principles apply across the sciences.

Academic CV vs. Resume: Why They're Different Documents

The confusion between CVs and resumes causes real problems. Researchers applying for academic positions sometimes submit a one-page resume because that's what they used for industry internships. Others submit a sprawling document with no clear organization. Neither works.

A resume is a marketing document: you choose what to include based on the specific job. A CV is comprehensive: you include everything and let the reader decide what matters. This distinction changes how you structure it.

In the US, the UK, and most of Europe, academic positions expect a CV. In industry, they expect a resume. Some countries use "CV" to mean resume. Context matters.

Quick comparison

	Academic CV	Resume
Length	2–20+ pages	1–2 pages
Content	Everything	Tailored to job
Publications	Full list, categorized	Selected or omitted
Objective	Not included	Sometimes included
Order	Reverse chronological	Flexible

Standard Section Order for Biomedical Researchers

There's no single "correct" order, but the convention below is what most hiring committees in the biomedical and life sciences expect. Deviating from it isn't wrong, but it forces readers to hunt for information they expect to find in a specific place.

Name and Contact Information

Full name at the top in a larger font. Below it: institutional email address, ORCID iD (linked), Google Scholar profile URL, and personal website or lab page if you have one. Use your institutional affiliation, not your home address. Include your department and university name.

Education

Reverse chronological. For each degree: institution, degree type (PhD, MS, BS/BA), field, year conferred. For your PhD, include your advisor's name and dissertation title. For master's degrees with a thesis, include the thesis title too. Don't include high school.

Research Experience

Postdoc positions, research assistantships, lab rotations (for current PhD students), and any industry research positions. Reverse chronological. For each position: your title, PI or supervisor name, institution, dates. Write 2–4 bullet points describing what you actually did — not what the lab works on in general.

Publications

The section that gets the most scrutiny. Separate into: peer-reviewed articles, preprints, book chapters, and manuscripts in preparation. Use a consistent citation format throughout (Vancouver, APA, or the format common in your field). Bold your name in each citation. Number them. See the detailed section below.

Presentations

Separate into: invited talks, contributed talks, and poster presentations. Include conference name, location, date, and talk/poster title. Invited talks carry more weight than poster presentations — separating them makes this visible at a glance.

Grants and Fellowships

List each with: title, funding agency, amount, dates, and your role (PI, Co-PI, trainee). Separate awarded from pending. Even small intramural grants count for PhD students and postdocs. Include fellowship stipends (e.g., F31, F32, T32).

Teaching Experience

Course name, your role (TA, guest lecturer, instructor of record), institution, and semester/year. If you developed new course materials or received teaching evaluations above the department average, note that.

Mentorship

List students you've directly mentored, with their level (undergraduate, rotation student, graduate student) and what they're doing now if they've moved on. This section matters more at the faculty level but is worth starting during your postdoc.

Professional Service

Journal peer review (list journals you've reviewed for), professional society memberships and committee roles, conference organizing, departmental committee service. For peer review, some researchers include the number of manuscripts reviewed per journal.

Skills and Techniques

Laboratory techniques (e.g., CRISPR, flow cytometry, single-cell RNA-seq), computational skills (R, Python, specific bioinformatics pipelines), languages. Keep this concise and relevant. Don't list Microsoft Office.

References

List 3–5 references with name, title, institution, email, and your relationship to them. Alternatively, write "Available upon request" — but listing them saves the committee a step. Always ask permission before listing someone.

The Publications Section: Getting It Right

For most academic positions, the publications list is the first thing the search committee reads after your name. How you organize it tells them a lot about your judgment.

How to categorize

Separate your publications into clear subsections, in this order:

1.Peer-reviewed original research articles. published and accepted
2.Review articles. if you have them, separate from original research
3.Preprints. posted on bioRxiv, medRxiv, or similar servers
4.Book chapters
5.Manuscripts under review. only if actually submitted
6.Manuscripts in preparation. use sparingly

Status labels: be honest

"Published". has a DOI and is publicly available
"Accepted". accepted for publication, not yet in print (include "in press")
"Under review". you've submitted it and it's actively being reviewed at a journal
"Submitted". submitted but not yet confirmed as under review
"In preparation". you're writing it. Don't list more than 2–3 of these. Listing 8 papers "in preparation" looks like padding.
"Preprint". posted publicly with a DOI on a preprint server. Include the server name and DOI.

Never list a paper as "under review" if it hasn't been submitted. Committees do check, and this is considered a form of misrepresentation.

Indicating Authorship Position

In the biomedical sciences, author position carries meaning. Your CV should make your contribution clear. There are a few standard ways to do this:

•

First author: Bold your name in the author list. Some researchers also add an asterisk (*) and a footnote: "* denotes first author."

•

Co-first author: Use a dagger (†) or asterisk next to both co-first author names. Add a footnote: "† co-first author" or "* equal contribution." This is standard and widely understood.

•

Corresponding author: Add a superscript envelope icon or a hash mark (#). Footnote: "# corresponding author." Corresponding authorship indicates intellectual leadership of the project.

•

Last author / Senior author: In biomedical sciences, last position = senior author. If you're the last author, this is self-evident from the citation. No special notation needed.

Whichever notation you choose, be consistent throughout the entire publications list. A legend at the top of the publications section ("* first author, † co-first author, # corresponding author") saves the reader from guessing.

Writing Research Experience Descriptions

The difference between a strong CV and a weak one often comes down to how research experience is described. Many researchers write something like: "Worked in Dr. Smith's lab studying cardiac regeneration." That tells the committee nothing about what you did.

Weak example

Postdoctoral Fellow, Smith Lab, Harvard Medical School

2022–2025

Studied cardiac regeneration
Participated in lab meetings
Contributed to publications

Strong example

Postdoctoral Fellow, Smith Lab, Harvard Medical School

2022–2025 · Advisor: Dr. Jane Smith

Developed a single-cell RNA-seq pipeline to identify cardiomyocyte progenitor populations in adult mouse hearts after ischemic injury
Established and optimized a CRISPR-based lineage tracing system to track cell fate decisions during cardiac repair
Led a collaborative project with the Chen lab (MIT) integrating spatial transcriptomics with electrophysiology data, resulting in 2 co-first author publications

Rules for research descriptions

• Start each bullet with a specific action verb: developed, established, identified, characterized, designed, optimized, analyzed, quantified
• Name the techniques you used. "Performed experiments" tells the reader nothing. "Performed ChIP-seq and ATAC-seq on sorted hematopoietic stem cells" tells them exactly what you can do.
• Write 2–4 bullets per position. More than 4 gets hard to scan. Fewer than 2 looks thin.
• Include your advisor's name for every position. Committees want to know who trained you.

Formatting Rules

Formatting isn't glamorous, but inconsistent formatting tells the committee you rush through details. In a stack of 200 applications, small things matter.

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Dates on the right margin: Right-align all dates. This creates a clean visual column that makes it easy to scan your timeline. Left-aligned dates mixed with text look cluttered.

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Reverse chronological throughout: Most recent first, in every section. Don't mix chronological orders between sections.

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No photo (US convention): In the United States, don't include a photo. In some European countries it's expected, so check local norms if you're applying internationally.

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Consistent font and sizing: One serif or sans-serif font throughout. 11–12pt for body text, 13–14pt for section headers. Don't use decorative fonts. Times New Roman, Garamond, Calibri, and Helvetica all work.

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Generous white space: Use clear spacing between sections (at least 12pt). Don't cram content to save pages. An academic CV can be long — that's expected.

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Section headers should stand out: Use bold, slightly larger font, or a horizontal rule under each section header. The reader should be able to find any section in under 3 seconds.

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Page numbers: Always include page numbers. "LastName – CV – Page X of Y" in the footer is the standard format.

How Long Should Your CV Be?

There's no page limit on an academic CV, but length should reflect career stage. A PhD student with a 15-page CV is padding. A full professor with a 2-page CV is hiding something.

Career Stage	Typical Length	What's Different
PhD student	2–3 pages	Education is near the top. Research experience may include lab rotations. Publications list is short (that's fine). Teaching and mentorship sections may be brief. Skills section carries more weight here than at later stages.
Postdoc	3–5 pages	Publications list is the centerpiece. Research experience should show independence beyond the PhD. Grants and fellowships (even small ones like F32s or K99s) signal that you can secure funding. Mentorship of students starts appearing.
Assistant Professor	5–10 pages	Grant funding moves higher in the section order (often right after publications). Teaching philosophy may be requested separately. The mentorship section expands. Professional service (review, committees) becomes substantial.
Senior Faculty	10–30+ pages	No practical limit. Publications, grants, invited talks, and mentorship can each span multiple pages. Some senior faculty organize publications by topic rather than chronologically. Editorial board memberships and society leadership appear.

What Changes at Each Career Stage

PhD Student CV

Your education section is prominent because it's your most recent and relevant credential. Include your dissertation title and advisor even if you haven't defended yet ("expected May 2027"). List lab rotations under research experience if you don't have other research positions. Your skills section matters more at this stage. Committees hiring postdocs want to know what techniques you've mastered. Don't list coursework: it takes up space and doesn't add information. If you've TAed, include it. If you've mentored undergrads, include it.

Postdoc CV

Publications become the focus. Committees evaluating postdocs for faculty positions care about three things: your publication record, your ability to get funding, and whether you can work independently. Your research descriptions should start showing intellectual ownership. Projects you conceived, not just projects you contributed to. If you've written grants (even small ones), this is where they start making a difference. Mentorship of rotation students or undergrads shows you're thinking about lab management.

Faculty CV

Grants move up in the section order. Often right after publications. For tenure-track positions, funded grants (R01, R21, DP2, or equivalents) are the strongest signal of independence. Teaching experience and mentorship expand. Professional service (editorial boards, study sections, society committees) becomes its own substantial section. Some faculty add an "Awards and Honors" section after education. The CV is no longer a document you're building. It's a document that represents an established research program.

Visual Section Order by Career Stage

This shows the recommended order of sections, with the most important sections for each career stage listed first. Sections near the top get read first.

PhD Student

1.Contact Information
2.Education
3.Research Experience
4.Publications
5.Presentations
6.Skills & Techniques
7.Teaching
8.Awards & Fellowships
9.Professional Service
10.References

Postdoc

1.Contact Information
2.Education
3.Research Experience
4.Publications
5.Grants & Fellowships
6.Presentations
7.Mentorship
8.Teaching
9.Professional Service
10.Skills & Techniques
11.References

Faculty

1.Contact Information
2.Education
3.Appointments
4.Publications
5.Grants & Funding
6.Invited Talks
7.Mentorship
8.Teaching
9.Professional Service
10.Awards & Honors
11.References

Common Mistakes

Burying publications at the bottom: Publications should be in the top half of the CV. If you've placed teaching and service above your publication record, you're signaling that publications aren't your strength. For research positions, publications go after research experience.

Listing courses you've taken: Don't include a "Relevant Coursework" section. You have a PhD — the committee assumes you've taken courses. The only exception is specialized short courses or workshops (e.g., Cold Spring Harbor courses, EMBL workshops) that signal specific training.

Inconsistent formatting across sections: If you bold your name in the publications list, bold it everywhere. If you right-align dates in education, right-align them in every section. Inconsistency signals carelessness, which is the last thing you want to communicate to a search committee.

Using 'participated in' or 'assisted with': These phrases minimize your contribution. Even if you were a junior member of a team, describe what you actually did: "optimized the FACS sorting protocol," not "assisted with experiments." If you designed the experiment, say so.

Including irrelevant personal information: Don't include your date of birth, marital status, nationality, or hobbies (unless directly relevant, like fluency in a language needed for field work). In the US, some of this information creates legal complications for the hiring committee.

Using a resume template from a career center: Resume templates (with colored sidebars, skill bars, and headshot placeholders) are designed for industry applications. They look out of place for academic positions. Use a clean, text-forward layout.

Not numbering publications: Number your publications in reverse chronological order. This lets committee members quickly reference specific papers in discussion: "Let's look at paper #4 on their list." It also makes your total count immediately visible.

Listing every conference you attended: Only list conferences where you presented (talk or poster). Attending a conference isn't an accomplishment — presenting at one is.

References

Dunn P, Halonen A. A Practical Guide to Creating a Strong Academic CV. Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Career Resources. 2023. [gsas.yale.edu ↑]
Tompkins L, Biro S. Writing a Curriculum Vitae. Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, Harvard Medical School. Updated 2024. [postdoc.hms.harvard.edu ↑]
National Institutes of Health (NIH). Biosketch Format Pages, Instructions and Samples. Updated 2024. [grants.nih.gov ↑]
Helmers SL. Writing an effective CV for academic medicine. Neurology Clinical Practice. 2012;2(2):114-117. [pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29443321 ↑]
ORCID. Include your ORCID in your CV. ORCID Support. Retrieved March 2026. [info.orcid.org ↑]

Suggested Citation

APA

Manusights. (2026). How to write a scientific CV for academia. Retrieved from https://manusights.com/resources/scientific-cv-guide

MLA

Manusights. "How to Write a Scientific CV for Academia." Manusights, 2026, manusights.com/resources/scientific-cv-guide.

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Manusights. How to write a scientific CV for academia [Internet]. 2026. Available from: https://manusights.com/resources/scientific-cv-guide

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